Twenty-One Days in India; and, the Teapot Series eBook

I like the recognised relations between the Archdeacon
and women. They are more than avuncular and less
than cousinly; they are tender without being romantic,
and confiding without being burdensome. He has
the private entree at chhoti hazri, or
early breakfast; he sees loose and flowing robes that
are only for esoteric disciples; he has the private
entree at five o’clock tea and hears plans
for the evening campaign openly discussed. He
is quite behind the scenes. He hears the earliest
whispers of engagements and flirtations. He can
give a stone to the Press Commissioner in the gossip
handicap, and win in a canter. You cannot tell
him anything he does not know already.

Whenever the Government of India has a merrymaking,
he is out on the trail. At Delhi he was in the
thick of the mummery, beaming on barbaric princes
and paynim princesses, blessing banners, blessing
trumpeters, blessing proclamations, blessing champagne
and truffles, blessing pretty girls, and blessing
the conjunction of planets that had placed his lines
in such pleasant places. His tight little cob,
his perfect riding kit, his flowing beard, and his
pleasant smile were the admiration of all the Begums
and Nabobs that had come to the fair. The Government
of India took such delight in him that they gave him
a gold medal and a book.

With the inferior clergy the Archdeacon is not at
his ease. He cannot respect the little ginger-bread
gods of doctrine they make for themselves; he cannot
worship at their hill altars; their hocus-pocus and
their crystallised phraseology fall dissonantly on
his ear; their talk of chasubles and stoles, eastern
attitude, and all the rest of it, is to him as a tale
told by an idiot signifying nothing. He would
like to see the clergy merely scholars and men of sense
set apart for the conduct of divine worship and the
encouragement of all good and kindly offices to their
neighbours; he does not wish to see them mediums and
conjurors. He thinks that in a heathen country
their paltry fetishism of misbegotten notions and
incomprehensible phrases is peculiarly offensive and
injurious to the interests of civilisation and Christianity.
Of course the Archdeacon may be very much mistaken
in all this; and it is this generous consciousness
of fallibility which gives the singular charm to his
religious attitude. He can take off his ecclesiastical
spectacles and perceive that he may be in the wrong
like other men.

Let us take a last look at the Archdeacon, for in
the whole range of prominent Anglo-Indian characters
our eye will not rest upon a more orbicular and satisfactory
figure.

A good Archdeacon, nobly planned
To warn, to comfort, and command;
And yet a spirit gay and bright,
With something of the candle-light.